Collective Bargaining

We are a small dept. working on obtaining collective bargaining. If anyone has went through with this any feedback will be well received. If you wish to help, please visit our web site where you can learn more about the issue and help us out by e-mailing our city council people if you would.
Thank you....

Good luck to you, we are also going through collective bargaining for the first time. We live in Mo and this is not a collective bargaining state, it would be nice if it was. We are having some luck with the nonmoney issues but is now time to start with the money issues, and the city is having some problems with some of it. Hope everything works out. Be good and safe.

When my place went union some 12 years ago we had a real rough time of it for several years. The solution to the problem was finally realized when we got enough board members elected that were sympathetic to our problems. We now have a new chief and have made some big strides. That might be a solution that your Local has to go with. It takes alot of work and time but the results are well worth it.

BE CAREFUL! That's my advice. My job went Union only 3 years ago and obtained a 4 year deal that everyone was happy with, at the time. My Depts. history was ugly with Village vs. Dept. politics, Village led internal investigations, threatening with private Ambulance services, changing shifts ( not from Red to Gold to Black; fro 24/48 to 12/12, 10/14, and even three 8's ). So when the agreement was reached with a new Village board both sides wanted to show good faith. The Village conceeded a lot to us in the form of pay and benefits, but, a lot of issues were sealed with a handshake and a wink of the eye and some of those have come back to haunt us. Most are labor issues, POC's filling in for full-timers, dropping below minimum staffing levels and hiring back a POC instead of full-time etc. Now that our contract is almost up and were are heading into new negotiations we have already heard that the Village knows these issues are our front-runners and want us to give up some of the pay and benefits we secured in the original agreement. So just remember, even though signing bonuses, lump-sum payments and days off look good near the Holidays how will it affect you down the road?